Canuck Book 10 - The Diviners by Margaret Laurence

I'm going to keep this one simple - If Margaret Laurence must be taught in high schools, then this is the book to teach, not The Stone Angel. Don't get me wrong. The Stone Angel is a very good book. The problem is I couldn't accept that fact until I was in my mid-20's. In high school, I hated the book because it just didn't seem all that relevant or interesting.

Now, I'm not sure that The Diviners would be a great fit for high schools, but it would be better than The Stone Angel. I wish I would have read it in high school but I've always been a little bit different that way.

The Diviners is one of my all-time favourite books. It's one of the few books I do go back and reread every now and again because it has never stopped amazing me.

This time was no exception.

Canuck Book 9 - Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler

The great thing about spending much of this challenge re-reading books is that I feel I've had a chance to become reacquainted with some old friends. It's interesting to see how they've changed for me over the years. Sometimes I've forgotten things, sometimes I've remembered things differently. The past is such a fluid thing, even for books.

This is especially true with the fictional memoirs of Barney Panofsky. Barney is writing his memoirs to refute the soon to be published memoirs of his one-time friend turned enemy Terry McIvor. Divided into sections named after his three wives, the novel jumps back and forth between the past and the present while Barney gives his version of his life, including the disappearance of his best friend Boogie (for which Barney was tried and acquitted of murder). It's a shambling mess of a tale with myriad digressions and asides.

But that's the thing. Rereading this book, I see how well Richler put the tale together. The second time around, it's easier to see how much thought was put into each digression, each outburst. Richler takes the reader for one hell of a ride with just the right number of drops and twists to keep the reader going until they come up against an ending that killed me even the second time around.

Barney's Version is an incredible book and one that leaves me seriously divided. On the one hand, you read this book and wish that Richler had finished one more book. On the other hand, it's great to see that he went out in fine form, shouting and punching and landing more than a few good ones.

Canuck Book 7 - All My Friends Are Superheroes by Andrew Kaufman

Forget reading this post. If you haven't already read this book then you must go out and get a copy. If you can't find it in your local bookstore, get it from here (http://www.chbooks.com/). While you are there, pick up Bok's Eunoia and Helwig's Girls Fall Down if you can but mostly just buy this book. It's a treat.

I tend to look at most books as meals. Really good meals, the kind you want to linger over. I read slowly and immerse myself fully in the experience. This book, however, is a really decadent dessert. It is short and moves fast. It's also a book that I have read a few times, partly because it's quick and mostly because it is a really smart story.

Basically the title says it all. All of Tom's friends are superheroes. Tom is not. From the Couch Surfer to the Sloth, they all have their special abilities. I won't ruin it for you by discussing their particular abilities as that is part of the fun of this book.

On the night Tom marries the Perfectionist, Hypno (the Perfectionist's ex) hypnotizes the Perfectionist so that Tom becomes invisible to her. The story takes place six months later when the Perfectionist has given up on trying to find Tom and flies to Vancouver to start over. Tom has the length of the flight from Toronto to Vancouver to convince her that he has not disappeared or he will lose her forever.

What follows is a book that is cute, funny and smart. The superhero conceit works amazingly well. Read it.

Canuck Book 6 - This All Happened by Michael Winter

Another of my faves, This All Happened is a novel as journal chronicling 365 days in the life of Gabriel English, Michael Winter's fictional alter-ego. I must admit I have a thing for novels that tell their stories differently - from the epistolery novel (like Richard Wright's Clara Callan) to stranger works (like Leanne Shapton's Important Artifacts. . . ). As such, it should come as no surprise that I love this strange book.

The novel is exactly what I said - 365 journal entries following the life of Gabriel Winter. While the book does follow the disintegration of English's relationship with his girlfriend Lydia, it can't be said to have a plot as such. Things happen. Things don't happen. Friends get together. Friends break up. Some of the best passages of the book involve nothing more than English observing the world around him. I've read this book three times and I'm still finding things to love.

Canuck Book 5 - When I Was Young and In My Prime by Alayna Munce

Well, it's been a bit longer than I'd hoped since my last post. Between long stretches of work and technical difficulties (I wouldn't mind meeting the writers of a certain virus in a back alley, if you know what I mean), I'm just now getting back to the blog.

Well, there's also the fact that I spent a lot of my spare time plowing through Stephen King's latest, the amazingly good Under the Dome. It's not often one can say that a 1000+ page book moves quickly but this one does.

When I first thought of spending this Canuck book challenge revisiting old favourites, one of the books I was most looking forward to rereading was Alayna Munce's When I Was Young and In My Prime. I picked it up originally on a whim and was surprised by the beauty and truth it held.

This is a poet's novel. Or a novel poem. In a lot of ways, it seems more like a fictional journal than anything else. It's a book that tells its story through thoughts and feelings rather than action. I guess the best way to describe it is that it is a story that is told through the spaces between actions rather than through the actions themselves, if that makes any sense at all. It does to me, but that could just be because I've read this novel twice and been captivated by it both times.

The story weaves the tale of young married woman living in Parkdale with that of her grandparents, one-time farmers who moved into town. Perspectives shift. Narratives entwine as the story is told (and sometimes retold) by the protagonist and her grandparents.

This is a novel to sink into. It's not just the story it tells; it's the way Munce tells it. Beautiful sentences and images abound. I strongly recommend it.

I wasn't really sure what I was going to read next for the challenge until I started looking at this book more as a journal as novel. That sent me diving through the stacks of books to pull out Michael Winter's This All Happened, a most definite journal as novel following 365 days in the life of Winter alter-ego Gabriel English. At the same time, I found a nice hardcover copy of Morley Callaghan's That Summer In Paris at Ten Editions Books this afternoon so I think I'll give that a go, as well.

Seeing as I'm on the topic of re-reading Canuck books, I might as well put it to you, the readers: What one Canuck book do you most want to read? Why?

If you're interested, the National Post's book blog, The Afterword, is looking for suggestions for an alternative to this year's old and kind of dull Canada Reads selections. It's an interesting idea. The books need to be less than two years old, which sadly rules out the Munce book or Andrew Kaufman's All My Friends are Superheros. Intead, I suggested Maggie Helwig's Girls Fall Down.